Piercing an interface with a brush: collaborative stiffening
Soft Condensed Matter
2010-06-17 v1 Materials Science
Statistical Mechanics
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Abstract
The hairs of a painting brush withdrawn from a wetting liquid self-assemble into clumps whose sizes rely on a balance between liquid surface tension and hairs bending rigidity. Here we study the situation of an immersed carpet in an evaporating liquid bath : the free extremities of the hairs are forced to pierce the liquid interface. The compressive capillary force on the tip of flexible hairs leads to buckling and collapse. However we find that the spontaneous association of hairs into stronger bundles may allow them to resist capillary buckling. We explore in detail the different structures obtained and compare them with similar patterns observed in micro-structured surfaces such as carbon nanotubes "forests".
Cite
@article{arxiv.1006.2116,
title = {Piercing an interface with a brush: collaborative stiffening},
author = {F. Chiodi and B. Roman and J. Bico},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1006.2116},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
9 pages, 6 figures